PART V.

                                    Infective Diseases.

                                        CHAPTER I.

                                GENERAL REMARKS.

CONTAGIOUS diseases are not only communicable directly from
one animal to another, but may be indirectly so by the poison
(virus) being carried by attendants or their clothes, contaminated
fodder, or in water presented in utensils to which sick animals have
had access. Dogs, etc., should not be kept in elephant camps. It
is as well to remember these points.

2.   It should be a rule to treat all newly purchased animals as
having been exposed to contagion. They with their attendants
should be kept quite separate for at least a fortnight. The animals
should be inspected certainly once, if not twice a day. Any case of
sickness should be forthwith isolated, the healthy animals divided
into small groups and kept well apart. A strict watch should be kept.

3.   At all times it is advisable to segregate any case of fever
and keep it so until proof is afforded that the disease is non-infective.

4.   In case of a disease being contagious the most important
step is without delay to separate the sick with their attendants, gear,
utensils, etc., from the healthy. Divide the healthy into small
batches, picket them well apart and to windward of the sick camp.
Take the temperature of the healthy animals twice a day, by this
means any fresh cases will be detected in the earliest stage of disease
and they can be removed to the sick camp at once, thus to a great
extent arresting the further spread of disease. If this very necessary
aid to detecting cases early be adopted, it will as a rule be found
that the disease is confined to one or two groups and can be
effectively dealt with.

5.   With regard to the isolated area set apart for the sick
camp this should, when possible, be near a stream and situated well
below all other camps. The attendants and their sick animals should
not be permitted to leave it. Forage, if it has to be brought, should
be carried to the edge of the sick camp and then removed by
attendants in the isolated area. One of the first duties should be to